Hello Everyone!
I going to talk about a some major barriers to conserving water. Of course, we've all heard about issues such as price, cost of conservation technologies, and so on. And in fact, one reader actually e-mailed me and asked about rationing as a means of cutting down on water consumption.
But perhaps the biggest barrier lies in the system itself. Namely that in our current society there is a sort of competition between "traditional" concepts of water rights, most of which saw the ownership of water as unethical and operated in terms of use rights, versus the idea that water should become a marketable good. The problem with traditional water rights systems is that it becomes very difficult to create any real incentives for conserving water without at the same time penalizing those who conserve the most. However the idea that water should be an economic good is problematic for several reasons. One of which is the long tradition of considering ownership of water as both deeply unethical socially. Furthermore, the concept of water as a marketable good and the rise of "water sellers" has a long tradition of fostering severe economic inequities, along with hierarchical and militaristic forms of social control.
Some of the common non-market forms of water rights are the following doctines:
1) Riparian Doctrine: Basically the Riparian doctrine grants water rights on the basis of owning the land adjacent to the water source, or upon the water table. At least in theory, access to the water is shared equally among the land owners or is proportionate. Generally under this system, shortages are shared equally, or at least as equally as land ownership is. This system is predominant in most of the Eastern United States and in many parts of Western Europe, especially Britain and France. Historians can have some fine arguments as to where this idea originated and, whether or not the French brought it to England. But of course, the English and French did bring it to the original 13 colonies, and most of the Louisianna purchase area, where it remains. It's easy to see how this could work in a French of English countryside, or New England where most people owned a small plot. (Of course things were never quite that idyllic, in reality.) But it tends not work so well where the land is held by a small elite class, where shortages are more severe and common. Or most of all, where the ecology of the area as a whole and the flora and fauna that live there have profound effects on the quality and even the quantity of the water.
2) Prior Appropriation: Basically this model of water rights could best be described by the principles of "first come first served" and "use it or loose it". While there are variations on this system it usually involves a situation where the first party to claim to put the water to beneficial use owns the rights to it. However most of the time if the party is not using the water or even not using all of the water, other parties can stake their claims on what is not being used. So basically it's like being in a school cafeteria where any number of other kids from your best friends to your worst enemies may come up and ask "Hey are you going to eat your pudding?", "Can I burrow that nickel?" Needless to say that the incentive to conserve water is systematically undermined by that system. Basically this system is dominant in most of the American West (California is a partial exception). It had its origins in Islamic Law. (Think we can use this to convince the Freepers and Birthers that the status quo of water in the American West isn't perfect?) Basically the Islamic religion was never crazy about wealth of any kind being hoarded without being used to benefit humanity or create work or something. So this traveled from North Africa to Spain and from Spain to Mexico. After the Mexican War this system of water rights was left at least somewhat intact in most of the West. This system holds sway in many of the more arid parts of the world. Of course, this system probably made more sense when most large scale use tended to involve farming, creating orchards and such.
Another problem with the idea of beneficial use is that there is no one standard under which it is defined. In theory the definition can be tight enough to define bathing outside of Saturday night as a luxury. Or it can include things such as indoor artificial ski slopes.
3) Pueblo Rights are another concept that parts of the US inherited from Mexico. Basically this defines the water under or in a city or town, as being for domestic and municipal use, without many options for other users to stake any claims to it. This could be a good thing if many other parties are out to take the water from the population for one use or another, or a bad one if conservation is low, the population is growing, and sprawl is rampant. Basically you can find examples of certain towns or cities either depending on this to survive or becoming a 900 gorilla.
4) Public Trust Doctrine-Basically this says that certain assets simply belong to the public, must be preserved for the public, and can't be bought up by anyone. The first example in history was supposedly was when the Roman Emperor Justinian declared that unowned portions of the seashore were open to everyone. Usually with water this would apply either to quality standards or to situations such as making a certain lake, river, or in fact seashore open to the public. Rivers in particular might be held under this doctrine as a form of transportation. Or certain limited amount of fishing, clamming and such might as be defined as a public right. So this right seems to be the first that inherently requires some attention to the ecology involved.
Of course, all of these models are both based on centuries of history and none have solved the problem of how to make water accessible for necessities, but at the same time prevent waste. Of course, not only is the world facing problems related to water that would have been hard for the ancients who created our water laws to comprehend, but new solutions are also hard to fit into this framework. For example, traditionally water has been stored in systems such as reservoirs, behind damns, or certain parts of the world a Persian concept called a Qanat or sometimes a Quarez. The last of which is a system of underground canals and moving part free wells. Historically they've been built by "expendable" members of society, but now some Israeli engineers are working on machines that can do the dangerous parts.
One major advantage of storing and transporting water underground is avoiding evaporation-something which is only going to get worse with global warming. However, underground storage of water is starting to include projects that are taking recycled sewage and injecting into aquifers. Another method of water storage designed to avoid evaporation is deliberating creating wetlands that use vegetation as way to prevent salinization and evaporation losses. Some argue that evaportation is a greater evil than absorption into the soil, since the latter tends to end up recharging aquifers and the former ends up adding salt to the soil.
Add to that those "novelties" the fact that we may be able to create more freshwater. The most obvious method is desalinization. But also some industrial processes such as creating fuels from biomass gasification and pyrolysis, or Virent Energy's plans to transform biomass into gasoline and other fuels are labeled as water positive. Which means that they produce more water as a side product than they consume. While the win-win potential of these technologies is easy to see, one problem/obstacle is the fact that the water produced may be quite polluted. Who is going be responsible for cleaning the water? Will it be diposed of into muddy and polluted puddles creating a new class of Superfund site? Or will it be made clean enough for municipal taps, ecologically delicate lakes or rivers, or even injection into an aquifer? And at whose expense? The biofuel/biotech companies who are after all producing both home grown/low carbon fuel and "new water" at the same time? Or appropriate technology solutions such as harvesting water from fog with special nets? Where do the economics of "creating" freshwater through desalinization or cleaning the byproduct water of biomass to fuel plants fit into all this?
Certainly the people who originated our current water laws would have never considered things such as man-made projects to refill wells, "man made" water, or harvesting water from the skies, anything more than the musings of philosophers, alchemists, sorcerers, fools, and the stuff of tall tales. What are we going to do to deal with them?
Currently the only alternatives to these ancient systems of water law that I've been able to find involve corporate privatization. Currently many locations use a combination of different systems. For example California, USA has a mix of riparian doctrine, prior appropriation, pueblo, and public trust depending on the type of water usage involved.
Some people have suggested that water distribution is one of those things that don't leave much room for any truly new ideas. That modern people just aren't likely to come to any conclusions that are our ancient ancestors haven't thought of.
And this question is a dilemma to me. On one hand the "hydro-conservatives" who say that new-fangled ideas are just old follies with new packaging, make a compelling case. On the other hand, I don't know how the old models will handle a changing world. If new models aren't developed is it possible that corporate ones will prevail?
This is just the start of the dilemmas raised by Water Politics 2.0.
Say Goodnight Readers!
No comments:
Post a Comment